Renegades of Gor

by Norman, John;

  “The whip is an excellent device for taking pride from a woman,” I said.

  “I do not doubt it,” she said.

  “Or, generally,” I said, “for bringing about reforms in her character.”

  “Yes,” she laughed, “and for bringing us to you in any way you please to have us.”

  I then kissed her, and left her.

  23

  Claudia, Slave

  The slave lay before me, on her stomach, over a pile of rope, aft on the Tais. Her head was down. Her neck was chained to a ring on the deck.

  “Is it you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I am afraid of you,” she said. As a slave she had a right to this fear, indeed, a right to the fear of any man.

  “Do you wish to beg for mercy?” I asked.

  “Would my pleas be meaningful?” she asked. “I am a slave. Will masters not do with me as they please, regardless of my pleas?”

  “They will do with you as they please,” I said, “but if they harken to your pleas, then it may be that what will please them will be to do with you as you plead.”

  “Then by all means,” she said, “I plead for mercy!”

  “But will it be shown to you?” I asked.

  “I do not know, Master,” she whispered.

  “That, you see,” I said, “is what the masters will decide.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “You were once Lady Claudia, of Ar’s Station,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Who are you now?” I asked.

  “Claudia,” she said, “a slave.”

  She was pretty, lying on her belly, on the ropes, her head down.

  “Lift yourself, Claudia, slave,” I said.

  “Oh!” she said.

  She was then held helplessly. She could not so much as move without giving me great pleasure.

  “What is wrong?” I asked.

  “I am afraid I will yield to you,” she whispered.

  “And what is wrong with that?” I asked.

  “But as a slave, a shameless slave!” she wept.

  “Do so,” I said.

  Then, sobbing, then gasping with elation, with relief, she yielded. I could hardly hold her for a moment, even with her small body, so grateful, so wild, so eager she was in her sudden, joyous spasmodic helplessness.

  Then she was on her belly, sobbing, pressing down into the ropes, as though she would hide herself in them. Her head was down, turned to the side, the side of it pressed against the ropes. She sobbed wildly, helplessly, poignantly, not able to understand her own behavior, shamed.

  I crouched beside her.

  “So that is how a slave is used!” she gasped.

  “Sometimes,” I said.

  “Surely no free woman would be used in such a manner!” she said.

  “Presumably not often, at any rate,” I granted her. I did know that free women might be, and occasionally were, used in that way, for example, to insult them, or prepare them for the collar. To be sure, the man who used them in that fashion might as well be, I supposed, for most practical purposes, their master.

  “Do you presume, incidentally,” I asked, “to arrogate to yourself the rights or modesties, or the least of the prerogatives, of the free woman?”

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “Do you presume, further,” I asked, “to inquire into even the least of the sexual habits or activities of free women, whatever they might be?”

  “No, Master!” she said. Her response amused me. Naturally both free women and slaves, as both are women, are very much interested in one another’s sexual activities. It is very natural. To be sure, unless the slave is a bred slave, most of this interest is on the part of the free women, for the slaves have usually, at one time or another, been free women, and have a very good idea of how narrow, dull, limited and mediocre is the sex life of the free woman. Indeed, the matter is paradoxical, for the free women have a tendency both to inquire eagerly into the behaviors expected of slaves, and enjoined upon them, and, at the same time, commonly profess horror and scandal at what they hear. But sometimes a free woman will almost beg a slave, as though she might be a freshly branded collar-sister, for some little thing or another, psychological or otherwise, to delight or stimulate her companion, perhaps even to freshen or retain his interest, perhaps even to save a deteriorating relationship. Sometimes, however, this has unusual consequences. The astonished companion may then begin to suspect that his companion has not been fully open with him, that she may not always have been free, but, indeed, may once have been a slave. Then, too, he may want more, and so on, and so on, and sometimes the poor lovely companion, in one way or another, finds herself actually, legally, reduced to slavery, brought under the whip, and being trained to delight her former companion. Ownership has succeeded contractuality. But I think that this is what she may have wanted all along. To be sure, it does not matter, as she is then only a slave, like any other.

  “Such things are no longer of concern to you, are they?”

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “And you are a little liar, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Forgive me, Master!” she said.

  “In any event,” I said, “you need not concern yourself any longer with the sexual activities, the proprieties, and such, of the free woman. Your attention is now to be more properly focused on your own business and concerns, for example, such things as the many intricate, exciting, complex and delicious sexual modalities and behaviors of the female slave.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  The moons were full. The slave was pretty. It was late. We were one day out from Port Cos.

  I then turned her, and lifted her, as I had Publia, holding her knees up, close to her belly. Her body, like Publia’s, was a small, curvaceous delight. I then put her on her back, as I had Publia, on the coils of rope.

  She turned her face away from me, that our eyes not meet.

  “Look at me,” I said.

  She turned her eyes toward mine, reluctantly, but helplessly, commanded to do so. They were filled with tears. Her lip trembled.

  “Surely,” I said, “you have been richly used before now. This is not your first night at the ring.”

  “But I know you,” she said.

  “And do you think any man can be known as well as a slave knows her master,” I asked, “or that any woman can be known as well as a slave is known by her master?”

  “I do not know,” she said.

  “No,” I said. “The relationship of master and slave is the relation of total, helpless intimacy.”

  “Yes, Master,” she whispered, frightened.

  “To be sure,” I said, “the knowing of a master by his slave, and of a slave by her master, cannot occur immediately. It is a natural relationship, and thus like any other natural relationship, for example, between a sleen and its master, it will take time.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Do you have any questions?” I asked.

  “How can a man who truly knows a woman treat her as a slave?” she asked.

  “It is easy,” I said.

  She regarded me, frightened.

  “His knowledge even facilitates the matter,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, thoughtfully. “It would.”

  “There is even a special pleasure in doing so,” I said, “in mastering, and commanding, she who is most intimately known.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Similarly,” I said, “the nature of women, what they truly are, most deeply within themselves, apart from, and beneath, the gross, accumulated encrustations of artificialities and conventions, which must be peeled away, to reveal the true woman, naked and loving, is important. Beneath the confusions, the teachings, the conditionings, the resentments, the envy, lies the natural woman, the animal, with its genetic heritage, the animal which in the way of nature, in our own and related species, is in the kee
ping of the male, subordinate and submissive to him, a relationship which in the way of a civilization consonant with nature, enhancing it and perfecting it, institutionalized, is the relationship of master to slave, he dominant over her, she subject to him. This sort of thing is not unknown to women. Thus the male who surrenders his dominance is despised by women, even those who make use of him.”

  “But what male would ever surrender his dominance?” she asked, puzzled.

  I thought this was a good question. I wondered if any true male would ever really do so. Perhaps some might if they were fooled into doing so, I thought. Propaganda and conditioning are powerful tools of social control, natural or unnatural, deviant or otherwise. Linguistic rearrangements, for example, might help, deliberate socially or legally enforced alterations in the language attempting to make it impossible to even think of such things as manhood. But, I supposed, the blood, the brain, the heart, so to speak, deeper than verbal conditioning programs, deeper than contrived, immoral legalities, would go on thinking it, just the same. And new verbal forms, or more likely old ones, recollected and treasured, perhaps even revitalized, if only within the precincts of secret enclaves, might be found. “Perhaps somewhere there are some,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. I saw that she was skeptical, but did not wish to contradict me.

  “Thus, it is not surprising,” I said, “that he who best understands women, he who knows them best, he who loves them best, he who is most concerned with their fulfillment, is he who is most likely to put them in their place in nature, and keep them there, who is most likely to give them the attention and domination they require and crave. Indeed, many of the petty recalcitrances and rebellions of slave girls, and such, may be seen merely as attempts on their part to beg their masters to be strong with them, attempts somewhat like those of a child, sometimes, to reassure themselves of the reality and strength of the authority to which they are subject. Receiving this reassurance, whether in virtue of the lash, or other disciplines, they are then content, and happy.”

  “I love men,” she confessed, seemingly scarcely daring to whisper it.

  “Are you ashamed of that?” I asked.

  “Should I not be?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “You are no longer a free woman. You no longer need conceal your feelings. You may now openly and freely admit your interest in men and your love for them.”

  “I want to wear their collar,” she said.

  “You will,” I said.

  “I want to love and serve them, with my whole heart,” she said.

  “You will,” I said.

  “Yet how I fear masters!” she cried.

  “And rightfully so, slave,” I said.

  “The intimacies of which you spoke, the knowledges, the closeness,” she said, breathlessly, holding to me. “Such things are at the discretion of the master, are they not?”

  “Largely,” I said.

  “And not all masters grant them, do they?” she asked.

  “Of course not,” I said. I could not deny to her that some masters are heartless, that some are inflexible and cruel. And the coins of such men, of course, have as much buying power as those of anyone else. In fact, sometimes I have suspected that slavers enjoy throwing a girl who is still proud, or who has given them some difficulties, into such clutches. Sometimes after only a week in the power of such brutes a girl is almost willing to give her life to achieve a kind word, or a moment of intimacy. She is then ready to be a slave fully. The slave may be given more or less leash, as seems fitting, but she must always understand that it can be shortened at a moment’s notice, and that the whip is always ready.

  “How proud I was as a free woman!” she said, shuddering.

  “You are no longer a free woman,” I said.

  “And even a moment ago,” she said, “I, a slave, dared to question your usage of me!”

  “That is more serious,” I said.

  “How proud I was!” she exclaimed. “Punish me!”

  “No,” I said.

  “I was not pleasing!” she said.

  “Do not concern yourself with the matter,” I said. To be sure, had I taken offense, I would have seen to it that she was much concerned with the matter.

  “Shave my head!” she begged.

  “No,” I said.

  “Whip me!” she begged.

  “No,” I said.

  “But such things will be done to me, will they not?” she asked.

  “They may or may not, as the master pleases,” I said.

  “I have never even felt the whip,” she said.

  “With your nature,” I said, “I doubt that it will be much used on you, but, doubtless, from time to time, in the hands of one master or another, it will be.”

  “You will not whip me now?” she asked.

  “Let another give you your first whipping,” I said, “perhaps in a slave pen, in Port Cos.”

  “Then, if you will not punish me,” she said, “permit me to serve you as abjectly and intimately, as beautifully, as lovingly, as shamelessly as I can, within the limitations of my ignorance and lack of training.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  * * * *

  “In the cell, the day you escaped,” she said, smiling, “do you remember how you lay over me, covering my body with your own.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I thought you were trying to protect me, like a gentleman,” she laughed.

  “I was protecting you,” I said.

  “But you used me!” she laughed.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “From behind!” she said.

  “That was natural,” I said, “as we were lying, as I was protecting you.”

  “I was so surprised,” she said.

  “You were only a naive free woman then,” I said.

  “But I was a free woman!” she said.

  “True,” I said.

  “Yet you used me so, in spite of the fact that I was a free woman!”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “How could you dare to do so?” she asked.

  “It was easy,” I said.

  “Undoubtedly,” she said.

  “Also you were convenient, in that position,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  “And a free woman is only a slave without a collar,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  I lay back, looking up at the stars. The sail was furled. We were using the current to proceed downstream.

  “I think you used me to relieve your tensions,” she said.

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, chidingly, cuddling up to me. “I have heard men talking about such things. Some use their slave girls, before battle, to relieve their tensions. I think you used me merely to relax yourself before the door to the cell was opened.”

  “‘Merely’?” I asked.

  “Yes!” she pouted.

  “Do not underestimate yourself,” I said.

  “Master!” she laughed, kissing me.

  “On your stomach,” I said.

  She obeyed immediately, unquestioningly. “I love being a slave,” she said, “and serving!”

  * * * *

  We heard a fellow stirring about, on the deck.

  “It is my keeper,” she said, clinging to me. “He will put me below, in the hold!”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Can you not keep me a little longer in your arms?” she asked, anxiously.

  “A moment longer,” I said.

  “Oh!” she said, softly.

  Then I stood up, drawing my tunic about me.

  She then half sat, half knelt, the chain depending from her collar, her head down.

  I buckled the sword belt about me.

  She looked up at me, reproachfully.

  “Do you object?” I asked.

  “No, Master,” she said, quickly, kneeling. But her hands were on the chain depending from her collar. She drew on it a little.
It was on her.

  “Slave,” I said to her.

  “Yes, Master?” she said, looking up.

  “Perhaps you understand better now what you are,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “It will be done to you, and with you, as masters please.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, “for I am a slave.”

  “It is true,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “How is she?” asked the fellow, coming up to us.

  Immediately, before her keeper, she put her head down to the deck.

  Women learn such things quickly.

  “Excellent,” I said.

  “Master,” she said, timidly, not daring to raise her head, “may I speak?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Publia, slave, has told Claudia, slave, that we are to be put at the prow. May Claudia inquire of master if it be true?”

  “It is true,” he said.

  She raised her head a little, timidly. “May Claudia inquire how it is to be done?”

  “We use a harness of chains and leather,” he said. “The female is absolutely helpless, but is beautifully displayed.”

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “I do not know how to be displayed at the prow,” she said.

  “Do you not think the chains and leather will take care of that matter?” he asked.

  “But I mean with respect to my own appearance,” she said.

  “You will be naked, of course,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said, in misery, teased.

  The fellow laughed. “There are many different ways,” he said. “Free captures are often encouraged to volubly bemoan their fate, to appear tragically sorrowful, to beg mercy and lenience, to cover their bodies with tears, and so on, as they are carried prow-displayed, helplessly into bondage. This is amusing to the crowds at the piers. They are then marched through the streets, to the house of one slaver or another.”

  “Much depends,” she said, “on who has contracted for captures in advance?”

  “Usually,” he said.

  “Seasoned slaves, on the other hand,” he said, “usually appear pleased, even elated and joyful, and, if they do not appear so readily, they usually soon do so, once again encouraged. Sometimes the woman is required to appear proud, even contemptuous, for there are then fellows who will, so to speak, lie in wait for her at her sale, and bid high for her, hoping to bring her within the scope of their power, to get her, who was proud and contemptuous, into their collar. She will not remain proud and contemptuous for long. Other women are encouraged to appear terrified, or fearful. Fear in a woman is stimulating to a male and also to the female, making her more desperate to please, more eager to feel, more zealous to yield satisfactorily. These, and various other attitudes, may be required of women at the prow.